Online Disk-to-Disk Backup with Veritas NetBackup and VSS

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Online Disk-to-Disk Backup with

Veritas NetBackup and VSS

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Unauthorized duplication or reproduction of this document by any means, including electronic, reprographic, or any other form without written permission from Intransa, Inc., is strictly forbidden.

Use of this manual and the software program is subject to the terms of the License Agreement between you and Intransa, Inc. You should not use the software until you have read the License Agreement. By using the software program, you signify that you have read the License Agreement and accept its terms. For a complete explanation of the terms of this agreement, see the License Agreement booklet.

Trademarks

The Intransa logo, Intransa Storage System, StorControl, StorControl Management Tool, IntraStor, and the Simply Smarter logo are all registered trademarks of Intransa, Inc.

Microsoft® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Windows™ is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Java® is a registered trademark Sun Microsystems, Inc. Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Oracle® is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation.

All other brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies or organization. All names of people and companies used for examples in this manual are fictional. Any similarity to names of real companies and real people is coincidental.

Revisions

Intransa reserves the right to revise this document and the information within at any time and as necessary without the obligation to notify any person of revision.

Contact: Intransa, Inc.

2870 Zanker Road Suite 200 San Jose, CA 95134-2114 Phone: 408.678.8600 Fax: 408.678.8800

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1. Executive Summary ... 1

Overview...1

Intransa Disk-to-Disk (D2D) Backup Strategy ...2

Conclusion ...4

2. Preface ... 5

Introduction...5

Disk Backup Overview ...5

Advantages of Backup-to-Disk ...6

About Intransa ...8

Intransa – A brief profile...8

Intransa Approach to Solutions ...8

About Veritas ...10

Users ...10

Other Useful Resources...11

3. Veritas NetBackup ... 12

Overview...12

About Advanced Client ...14

Snapshots ...14

4. NetBackup Qualification Setup ... 16

Getting Started ...16

Assumptions...17

Configurations used in the Qualification Environment ...19

5. Configuring IP SAN Volumes... 22

Intransa Large Scale IP SAN Overview:...22

What is an IP SAN? ...23

Solution Specific Configurations ...24

Windows File System Tuning ...31

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Online Disk-to-Disk Backup with Veritas NetBackup and VSS Intransa Inc.

8. Testing Backup and Restore ... 66

Defining Storage Unit ...66

Defining Backup Policy...68

Verifying the Snapshot operations ...80

9. Performance Benchmarking... 86

10. Summary... 88

Conclusions ...88 Summary...88

11. Appendix ... 90

A.VSS Concepts ...90 A.1 What is VSS:...90 A.2 VSS Components ...91

A.3 How VSS works ...91

B. Overview to VSS and VDS Design ...93

C. Volume Shadow Copy Service...95

D. Tape Backups: Limitations ...99

E. Essentials of Veritas NetBackup Administration ...102

E.1 NetBackup Management...103

E.2 NetBackup Configuration Wizards ...109

E.3 Disk Staging Storage Unit Considerations...110

E.4 Types of Backup ...112

E.5 Configuring an Advanced Client Policy ...114

Reference and Acknowledgements ... 116

References ...116

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1. Executive Summary

In a 24x7x365 world with geographic distribution of users, even shrinking back up windows is becoming unacceptable, especially for mission-critical applications. Enterprise environments need up-to-the-minute data protection without sacrificing high availability. Especially in customer centric and service centric organizations, every minute of backup restore is important. In case of outage or disaster every minute of delay in putting back the operations translates into opportunity loss in terms of money, customers and image. In some cases it can be as serious as closing business.

Traditionally backup was taken in tape cartridges. However off late, disk capacities have overtaken single tape cartridge capacities. There seems to be a lot of interest by organizations to go for near line storage by deploying disk to disk backup solutions rather than taking directly into tapes. This makes business and economic sense in the whole run.

Overview

Backup to disk solutions provide tremendous benefits compare to traditional backup-to-tape. These benefits are as follows:

Faster recovery of mission critical data Faster restore from disk

Greater reliability of the backup media

Multiple backup and restore data streams to disk

Backup-to-disk is emerging as powerful solution for faster recovery of mission-critical data and it is complementary to backup-to-tape for long term storage.

Most of the applications today require frequent retrievals of recently captured data, as well as the need for backup of business critical data which is required to be preserved and retrieved quickly and efficiently. Today most of the

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leading-Online Disk-to-Disk Backup with Veritas NetBackup and VSS Intransa Inc.

Advanced Technology Attached (ATA) disk technology provides greater benefits over traditional tape with the increasing performance and reducing cost of disk. Disk-based backups will not replace tape, but will definitely shift tape into an archival role. Both of these media will co-exist.

Today, Intransa recommends adopting a backup-to-disk solution when performance and data reliability are the primary concerns of the customer.

Intransa Disk-to-Disk (D2D) Backup Strategy

Intransa has developed Large Scale IP SAN that is built around a set of modular components to deliver exceptional value, low total cost of ownership, high scalability, excellent performance, and built-in redundancy & reliability. These requirements define IntraStor™ architecture, our foundation for delivering block-level, distributed storage over IP-networks.

Intransa IntraStor™ is a 3-tiered distributed architecture that fully leverages the ubiquity of IP infrastructure and the iSCSI protocol to deliver intelligent, networked block-level storage. This offers the flexible scalability options in scaling up the storage capacity or storage throughput I/O performance or both.

This solution of Disk-to-Disk backup is using Veritas NetBackup software and Intransa VSS Provider software. Intransa offers the flexibility in performing the backup from the snapshot. Intransa VSS Provider smartly takes care of creating snapshot of the production data volume during the backup operations and deletes the snapshot after completing the backup. This reduces the burden of backup from the Production data volume and keeping it free only for the production purpose. Intransa’s scalable architecture offers the unique combination linear scalability in performance and capacity in pay as you grow mode.

This paper gives an overview of how to deploy Disk-to-Disk Backup Solution on Intransa Large Scale IP SAN using Veritas NetBackup and Intransa VSS Provider.

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The paper is lucidly divided into the following logical sections:

Section 2 is Preface gives introduction and brief need of the Solution. It also covers brief profiles about Intransa and Veritas.

Section 3 provides the overview of Veritas NetBackup Software, its architecture, basic functionality.

Section 4 provides the overview of Veritas NetBackup Qualification configurations setup and brief specifications of the servers used in the qualification environment.

Section 5 provides the overview of Intransa Large Scale IP SAN and step-by-step guide in configuring the IP SAN Volumes for the Disk-to-Disk Solution.

Section 6 provides step-by-step instructions for installing and configuring the Intransa VSS Provider software for the Disk-to-Disk backup Solution.

Section 7 provides step-by-step instructions for Installation and configuring NetBackup Server and Clients for the Solution using the snapshot feature.

Section 8 provides brief about defining the Disk Storage Unit , Backup Policy for using the snapshot feature for the solution and also provides the steps for conducting the backup and restore operations

Sections 9 provides the performance benchmarks for the backup & restore tests conducted.

Section 10 provides summary of the solution and the conclusions of the tests.

Section 11 is the appendix containing the additional information about the components used in the solution.

Brief concepts of Microsoft Virtual Shadow Copy Service.

Brief essentials of Veritas NetBackup Software, backup types and some useful guidelines and suggestions in configuring the solution.

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Section 12 is about the references used for this solution document and acknowledging the teams involved in formulating this solution.

Conclusion

The performance characteristics are very encouraging. It shows that backup windows can typically shrink by 3 times or reduce back up times by 66 % compared to the fastest LTO based solutions in the market.

Veritas NetBackup Software seamlessly gets integrated with the Intransa VSS Provider. This gives immense benefit for configuring the Disk-to-Disk Backup Solutions with Intransa IP SAN in using the automated snapshot feature.

A D2D solution of the nature proposed will benefit the IT staff to increase the numbers of backups or simply ease the management and cost of backups. This also insures that the backups are always near online and easily accessible.

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2. Preface

Introduction

This solution guide explains implementing backup-to-disk technology with Veritas NetBackup and the advantages over traditional tape based backup. These implementations have been tested by Intransa Solution Engineering teams.

This document contains information relating to configuring Veritas NetBackup and Intransa IP SAN, Intransa VSS provider to form the backup-to-disk solution. It also compares performance with the traditional tape backups.

Intransa Solution Engineering teams performed tests using specific system configurations. Due to variations in hardware, software, compressibility of data system usage and other factors, backup rates achieved in some situation may be different than those shown herein. All testing performed by the Solution engineering teams used the most up-to-date backup software available at that time. Other versions of these applications any yield other results.

Disk Backup Overview

Traditionally, backup software was created to write to a tape device. Today, most backup software products also support write to disk, which means writing to disk file in a file system. The file system may be on a Windows, Netware or UNIX platform, depending on the backup server. Disk-based RAID configurations enhance data protection beyond what tape can provide.

Backup and restore time using disk provides customers an advantage over using traditional tape. Disk drives are random access devices and can instantly start to transfer the files, whereas with tape, the tape must be loaded and then accessed, increasing the overall time. File system overhead and tape with on-board compression add more time lags.

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address space for files because the operating system allocates fewer groups of contiguous sectors.

Benefits of IP SAN disk-based backups that are discussed in more detail in this solution document include:

Random access characteristics of disk versus sequential access for tape simultaneous capability to read/write to disk.

Multiple host data streams

Disk performance compared to tape performance with compression. Aggregate performance

RAW disk performance

Advantages of Backup-to-Disk

Traditionally, tape has been the backup medium of choice, due to its cost-per-MB advantages compared with disk. However the economics of disk narrowing that gap. The advantages of using disk over with backup solutions can be grouped into four major categories:

Backup performance Restore performance

Media reliability and data availability Overall IT efficiency.

The following sections summarize these benefits.

Backup Performance

IP SAN storage systems based backup are much faster than tape drives. Some tape technologies respond to a minimal data stream by

“shoe-shining” or excessive positioning. Disks do not experience this behavior as they are inherently random access.

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Restore Performance

Data Recovery from disks are much faster than tape. The difference can be seconds or minutes, verses hours with tape.

Disk supports random and sequential access. Tape support sequential access only. This enables faster access to data files, improving overall performance. If data is on several tape cartridges, the following steps are required to restore the data:

1. Each tape must be mounted by the library (up to a minute per tape) 2. Tape must load (30 seconds to a few minutes )

3. Tape must be positioned to the desired data ( an average access time is a few minutes )

4. Tape must be rewound and unloaded ( 30 seconds to a few minutes ) 5. Load the next tape and repeat cycle.

Time to first byte takes milliseconds for disk versus seconds to minutes to tape.

Media Reliability and Data Availability

Media-specific errors, including faulty tape media, are reduced. Disk system RAID protection prevents data unavailability or data loss in the event of a disk drive failure.

Tape handing is reduced or eliminated. Maintaining a set of tapes from a tape library can be problematic and requires properly trained personnel.

Overall IT Efficiency

Disk does not require the tape handling /positioning and RAID protection makes it inherently more reliable. There is less need to perform frequent full backups. Fewer backups need to be performed, saving network and CPU load.

Tape undergoes a technology shift every three years, so a conversion process from old to new media must be undertaken at that interval. Disk technology does not go through these types of transitions since the format of the data is not changed as it is with tape technology.

New larger-capacity disk drive reduces floor space requirements compared with equivalent-capacity tape libraries.

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About Intransa

Intransa – A brief profile

Founded in September 2000, Intransa is an innovator of enterprise-class, intelligent IP storage products and software. Based on technology that leverages the low cost and maturity of Ethernet technology, Intransa’s IP SAN solutions dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of deploying scalable network storage. Intransa’s products re-define network storage to deliver the first full-featured IP SAN at a price attractive to organizations. Intransa believes that network storage should be easy, dynamic and intuitive. By achieving these goals, Intransa is enabling business customers to focus their resources onto mission-critical projects to improve their business.

Intransa’s new IP SAN Storage System is a second-generation iSCSI-enabled, networked storage solution that implements the IntraStor™ architecture. This solution offers low cost, block-level, networked storage that can be deployed anywhere on the IP network and managed centrally. The enterprise-class features, such as fail-over and load balancing, support the high-availability needs of online data. The policy-based virtual volume management and dynamic volume expansion capabilities, in conjunction with the Intransa’s inexpensive disk storage pool, simplify capacity management and improve capacity utilization for online, nearline, and backup/restore staging applications. Intransa’s snapshot capability allows many point-in-time virtual copies of data, representing days and weeks of data, thereby obviating the need to incrementally backup to tape on a daily basis.

Intransa Approach to Solutions

Intransa, with its partners, is focused and committed, to delivering Solutions to market that allows customers to implement end-to-end storage solutions. The Solutions are targeted to meet demanding customer needs.

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Intransa’s solution leverage on the simplicity, scalability and flexibility of the IntraStor Architecture. IntraStor architecture is an enabler for a solutions-based platform. The above figure gives a conceptual overview of the N-way Scaling in performance and capacity.

The following approach is helping Intransa to rapidly build a growing and satisfied client base all over the world.

Create a storage network as you would create your client/server (data) network

Leverage your existing IP infrastructure for solutions such as Disaster Recovery

Leverage existing IP expertise and resources in organization

Minimize the number of disparate networks that organizations have to manage and support

Increase return on your investment via Simplicity of Scaling the IntraStor architecture and solution

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up the performance on demand. Intransa will continue to develop value add features that allows our customers to take advantage of the IP network investment that they have already made.

For more details about Intransa please visit http://www.intransa.com

About Veritas

VERITAS Software is a leading provider of software and services to enable utility computing. In a utility computing model, IT resources are aligned with business needs and business applications are delivered with optimal performance and availability on top of a shared computing infrastructure, minimizing hardware and labor costs.

The VERITAS NetBackup mission is to provide heterogeneous data protection solutions ranging from the workgroup or departmental level to the enterprise level.

The NetBackup Enterprise Server product provides powerful functionality, flexibility, mainframe-caliber robustness, and high performance in large enterprise environments.

The NetBackup Server product is a high-performance solution offering ease of use and functionality that is appropriate to smaller work environments. NetBackup contains many significant enhancements in the area of scalability, application protection, clustering, advanced client and off-host backups, and integration with VERITAS Backup Exec.

For more details about Veritas please visit http://www.veritas.com

Users

This guide is intended to be used by Backup, System and network administrators. Throughout this document we assume basic understanding of:

Local Area Networks (LAN)

Ethernet and Ethernet-switching concepts Storage Area Network (SAN)

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Other Useful Resources

Intransa IP SAN Administrator’s Guide.

Intransa IP SAN Command Line Interface Guide. Intransa IP SAN StorControl Management Tool Guide. Veritas NetBackup Installation Guide

Veritas NetBackup System Administration Guide Veritas NetBackup Advanced Client Quick Start Guide

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3. Veritas NetBackup

This section provides brief introduction of Veritas NetBackup software, architecture, functionality and basics of snapshot.

Overview

Veritas NetBackup is based on client/server architecture. Each NetBackup client and server belongs to a storage domain. A storage domain consists of a single master Server, its associated “Media Servers” and “NetBackup clients”. The “Master Server” controls and directs all NetBackup operations in its storage domain. Each Media Server controls the backup devices it is connected to, including direct-attach and SAN devices. A Media server can have only one Master Server, but a Master Server can control more than one Media Server. The NetBackup clients are any systems containing data to be backed up. A Master Server can act as a Media Server, and are capable of being clients.

A NetBackup client is any system with data to be backed up. The client software is tailored to the operating system on which it is installed. Normally, a client operates under the control of the Master Server according to the rules and schedules that an administer establishes. A backup client accesses the storage media through a Media Server.

A NetBackup Media Server hosts one or more backup devices. Storage devices on the same SAN can be shared between Media Servers using the Shared Storage Option (SSO). The Master Server directs a client to send its data to a Media Server for backup. SSO does not support disk devices.

A NetBackup Master Server is the manager of the storage domain. An administrator can control all NetBackup functions in the storage domain from the Master Server.

NetBackup provides high-performance backups and restores for a variety of platforms, including Microsoft Windows, UNIX, and NetWare systems.

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Administrators can set up schedules for automatic, unattended backups for clients anywhere in the network. These backups can be full or incremental and are managed entirely by the NetBackup master server.

Users can start backups and restores from the computer where they are working. A user can also archive files. An archive operation backs up a file and then deletes it from the local disk if the backup is successful. Once started, user operations are managed by the NetBackup server.

NetBackup’s Media Manager software manages the media and storage devices. Robots require no intervention on the part of the administrator, operator, or the user. Standalone drives (those not in a robot) that contain appropriate media also require no intervention.

NetBackup includes both the server and client software:

Server software is on the computer that manages the storage devices.

Client software is on the computer whose data you want to back up. A server also has client software and can be backed up like other clients.

NetBackup supports both master and media servers. The master server manages the backups, archives, and restores. Media servers provide additional storage by allowing NetBackup to use the storage devices that they control. Media servers can also increase performance by distributing the network load.

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During a backup or archive, the client sends backup data across the network to a NetBackup server that has the type of storage specified for the client. The storage requirement is specified during NetBackup configuration

During a restore, users can browse and then select the files and directories that they want to recover. NetBackup finds the selected files and directories and restores them to the disk on the client.

About Advanced Client

Advanced Client option is required for taking the snapshots and Veritas NetBackup integration with Intransa VSS Provider.

Advanced Client combines the features of snapshot backup, FlashBackup, BLI Agent, offhost backup, and Instant Recovery.

Snapshots

A snapshot is a disk image of the client’s data made almost instantaneously. NetBackup backs up the data from the snapshot image, not directly from the client’s primary data. This allows client operations and user access to continue without interruption during the backup.

A snapshot image is required for all features of Advanced Client. A number of methods are provided for creating snapshots. You can select the snapshot method manually from the Policy dialog of the NetBackup Administration Console, or allow NetBackup to select the method for you.

Snapshot Basics

Large active databases or file systems that must be available around-the-clock are difficult to back up without incurring a penalty. Often, the penalty takes one of two forms:

The entire database is taken offline or the file system is unmounted, to allow time for the backup, resulting in suspension of service and inconvenience to users.

The copy is made very quickly but produces an incomplete version of the data, some transactions having failed to complete.

A solution to this problem is to create a snapshot of the data. This means capturing the data at a particular instant, without causing significant client downtime. The resulting capture or snapshot can be backed up without affecting the performance or availability of the file system or database. Without a complete, up-to-date snapshot of the data, a correct backup cannot be made.

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When a backup is managed by a backup agent on a Storage network, the data to backup must be contained in a snapshot. The backup agent can only access the data by means of the raw physical disk. Once the data is captured as a snapshot, the NetBackup client “maps” the logical representation of the data to its absolute physical disk address.

More details about administering the NetBackup Server and Microsoft’s Volume Shadow copy Service (VSS) frame work along with related technical details are covered on Appendix.

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4. NetBackup Qualification Setup

This section provides guidelines and in setting up the servers for Configuring the IP SAN volumes and Configuring Veritas NetBackup Server and Client to provide Disk-to-disk backup using Microsoft VSS framework. This section also provides brief specifications of the servers used in the qualification environment.

Getting Started

Before beginning the setup process, make sure you have gathered the following equipment and necessary information:

Intransa IP SAN along with Intransa VSS Provider Software.

The Veritas NetBackup Software Enterprise Edition (Version 5) with its Advanced Client license.

Windows 2003 Server with ServicePack-1, a Gigabit NIC and Microsoft iSCSI initiator. One other NIC for management interface.

Network settings specific to your network, such as: IP addresses, Network setting, Netmask setting, and Gateway setting.

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Assumptions

It is assumed that the following conditions exist before proceeding with the setup procedure:

NetBackup Server (NS) and NetBackup Client (NC) are installed with Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition with Updated Service Packs.

NS and NC are configured with Intel Gigabit Ethernet NIC with Microsoft initiators to connect to the Host Access Network (HAN) of IP SAN.

The setup machines have two network adapters:

One Gigabit adapter to connect to the iSCSI Network of IP SAN.

Second adapter to connect the NS, NC and other Client machine for backup management traffic on LAN switch.

Gigabit Ethernet Switch is used to connect the NS and NC to Host Access Network of IP SAN.

Jumbo frames are enabled on the Storage Data Network (SDN) GigE switch.

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The proposed D2D solution comprises of the following architecture:

The NetBackup Server (NS) is installed on an independent server and connected IP SAN for taking the backup on the disk. The NetBackup Clients utilizes IP SAN volumes to host the data.

The IP SAN provides the snapshot taking capability through built-in snapshot feature in the StorControl Software and Intransa VSS Provider software installed on the NC of which backup is to be taken.

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NetBackup Server provides scheduling and management functionality for initiating snapshots, scheduling the backup/restore operations, and deleting snapshots. In the above architecture, the backup data traffic flow from the IP SAN Snapshot Volume mounted on NC to the IP SAN netbackup volume.

The data backup occurs from snapshot volumes (provided by IP SAN) mounted at the Client to a backup volume on the IP SAN.

Configurations used in the Qualification Environment

Following is the qualification environment configured for the evaluation.

Servers

The configurations used in qualification environment are two Pentium 4 servers connected via Intel GigE Ethernet Adapter on LAN.

NetBackup Server (NS)

Pentium 4 server named as “Rasgulla” is configured as NetBackup Server.

NetBackup Client (NC)

Pentium 4 server named as “Jupiter” is configured as NetBackup Client.

Both machines are connected to Intransa large scale IP SAN storage via Gigabit Ethernet NIC with Microsoft iSCSI initiator

Networks

There are three types of Networks involved in the configurations

1. LAN: Local Area Network

Gigabit Ethernet LAN switch:

It is used for establishing the connectivity between the Servers and LAN Clients.

2. HAN: Host Access Network

Gigabit Ethernet HAN switch:

The connectivity between the IP SAN Host Access Network (HAN) and NetBackup Servers is done using the HP Gigabit Switch (HP procurve switch 2824) with no jumbo frame support.

3. SDN: Storage Data Network Gigabit Ethernet SDN switch:

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Enclosures. This is connected using Foundry EdgeIron 48G switch with jumbo frame enabled on the switch.

Software

Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition with updated service pack and NTFS file system is installed on NS & NC machines.

VERITAS NetBackup Server for Microsoft Windows Version 5.0 Intransa VSS Provider software.

Volumes

IP SAN Volume namely “netbackup” is configured using NTFS-Optimized

custom policy (which is described latter in the document) for taking the backup.

Also IP SAN Volume namely “source1” to “source 10” are created using simple stripe policy and used as source volumes for backup.

Volume netbackup is assigned to Netbackup Server “Rasgulla” via Storage Controller Module (SCM 1) and Source volumes are assigned to Netbackup Client “Jupiter” via Storage Controller Module (SCM 2)

Data

Set of 10 GB streaming datasets are prepared on the NetBackup Client (Jupiter) as source data for backup.

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Qualification Configuration in brief is in given in Table 1 below.

Table 1 :

No. Item Configuration

NetBackup Server and Client

1 Processor Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz Server with single CPU

2 Memory 1 GB (DDR266)

3 Local Hard disk 40 GB ATA

4 Network card Intel Pro Ethernet NIC

5 Host Based Adapter Intel Pro GigE Ethernet NIC with Microsoft iSCSI initiator

IP SAN : Intransa IP 5500 7 Storage Controller

Module

2 X SC5500 in cluster mode with build 1.4.00

8 Disk Enclosure 1 X DE5200 (16 X 250 GB Maxtor ATA disk drives) 9 Operating System Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition and

Service Pack 1 10 Host Access Network HP procurve switch 2824 12 Storage Data Network Foundry EdgeIron 48G

13 Veritas Veritas NetBackup Server 5.0 14 Intransa VSS Provider Software

15 Data 10 GB streaming data

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5. Configuring IP SAN Volumes

Intransa Large Scale IP SAN Overview:

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What is an IP SAN?

The IP SAN is an iSCSI-based storage system. It provides a large, scalable, easily managed pool of storage. The IP SAN is the best of both worlds: the block-level abilities of a Storage Area Network (SAN), and the simplicity and cost benefits of a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. In other words, it’s Simply Smarter™.

The IP SAN is more flexible than a traditional Fibre Channel SAN. It communicates with host application servers using the iSCSI protocol over Ethernet, rather than Fibre Channel, allowing for less costly Ethernet switches and tighter integration with an existing network.

The IP SAN connects the components by switched Ethernet connection, allowing drive capacity and Storage Controller Modules to be managed independently. The IP SAN is the perfect solution for decentralized, growing, and dynamic storage needs. It includes a scalable number of IP-addressable Storage Controller Modules and a scalable number of IP-addressable disks, which form a logical unit called a Realm.

A Realm is an administrative domain made up of a set of designated Storage Controller Modules, Disk Enclosures, associated software and network interconnects. The Storage Controller Modules within a Realm are managed by the StorControl software as a single pool of controllers, except in cases of single-Storage Controller Module systems. The storage space provided by the Disk Enclosures within a Realm is managed by the StorControl software as a single virtual pool of storage space. The Realm is the entirety of the managed system: each part of the system comes together to become the Realm. You manage the Realm as a single entity by managing its components.

Storage traffic moves from your Initiator to the IP SAN via an Ethernet (GigE) switch. By having a centrally-managed system, you can create easily managed volumes for your users. Here’s how it works:

Small Computer System Interface over IP (iSCSI) uses standard IP-addressable Ethernet connections for interaction between components. The Initiator uses a standard network interface card (NIC) with a

software iSCSI driver OR a hardware-based HBA with driver.

SC5500 Storage Controller Modules send requests and responses through a GigE (Ethernet) switch, handling traffic to the Initiator and the Disk Enclosure.

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Online Disk-to-Disk Backup with Veritas NetBackup and VSS Intransa Inc. Shared arrays of inexpensive disks

A modular, shared processor pool, simplifying shared storage; storage is added and removed as needed

A switched GigE Ethernet infrastructure

Unified management simplifies IP SAN administration

Both graphical and command line-based management interfaces

High availability: system-wide failover is handled automatically with minimal need for administrator intervention.

Solution Specific Configurations

Virtual volumes are configured on the Intransa Large Scale IP SAN one for Backup for NetBackup Server named “netbackup” and other named

“source1” to “source5” on NetBackup Client as a source for data operations in such a way that they will occupy the separate set of disks.

To setup the volumes follow the following steps:

Step 1: Create policy for creating the volumes

To create policy:

Logon to StorControl command line using the realm mgmt IP Create a Policy using the below

StorControl> Policy create name = NTFS-Optimized virtualDiskType

= RAID10 numberOfStripeMembers = 3 stripeElementSize = 64

Step 2: Volume Creation

Backup Volume (named “netbackup”)

Volumes can be created using graphical user interface (GUI) or by using the command line interface. Both of these methods are demonstrated one by one. Part I: Volume Creation using CLI.

StorControl> volume create blockSize = 512b policy = NTFS-Optimised size = 100GB name=netbackup virtualDiskplacement = new

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Part II: Volume Creation using GUI

Logon to StorControl GUI using the realm management IP, “admin” user and appropriate password.

Create a Volume using the below

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Use iSCSI compliant naming convention for volumes Set RAID level through policy

Select correct unit for desired volume size Placement - performance versus space efficiency

512-byte block size best for most applications on Microsoft Windows platform Initialize zeros-out blocks volume is created on

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Assign initiator to the Volume

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Volume is created and given an iSCSI Qualified Name (IQN)

Now go to the NetBackup Server (“Rasgulla”). Install the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator software. Double click on the “Microsoft iSCSI Initiator” icon

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Log on to the Target.

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Windows File System Tuning

Windows system create a 63-sector hidden are on disk to house the Master Boot Record (MBR). This cause all I/O in the file system made on the subsequent partition to be misaligned ( not on a 256KB boundary), and therefore I/O performance will suffer. By using a program called diskpar,available on the Windows Resource kit, you can alter the number of hidden block to a larger number so that the disk array I/O are aligned and better optimized.

We now have initialized basic raw disks. Query the partition information using the diskpar “i” command. (In this example, we installed the diskpar utility in a “Windows utility” directory on the C: drive.) This indicates the disk is accessible.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>diskpar -i 1 ---- Drive 1 Geometry Information ----

Cylinders = 13054

TracksPerCylinder = 255 SectorsPerTrack = 63 BytesPerSector = 512

DiskSize = 107372805120 (Bytes) = 102398 (MB)

End of partition information. Total existing partitions: 0 C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>diskpar -s 1

Set partition can only be done on a raw drive.

You can use Disk Manager to delete all existing partitions Are you sure drive 1 is a raw device without any partition? (Y/N) y

---- Drive 1 Geometry Information ---- Cylinders = 13054

DiskSize = 107372805120 (Bytes) = 102398 (MB) We are going to set the new disk partition.

All data on this drive will be lost. Continue (Y/N)? y Please specify starting offset (in sectors): 64

Please specify partition length (in MB) (Max = 102398): 102398

Done setting partition.

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Online Disk-to-Disk Backup with Veritas NetBackup and VSS Intransa Inc. PartitionNumber = 1

PartitionType = 7

You now should use Disk Manager to format this partition

Verify the partition information. (Notice the starting offset is 32768 and the number of hidden sectors is 64.)

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>diskpar -i 1 ---- Drive 1 Geometry Information ----

Cylinders = 13054

DiskSize = 107372805120 (Bytes) = 102398 (MB) ---- Drive Partition 0 Information ----

StatringOffset = 32768

PartitionLength = 107372085248 HiddenSectors = 64

PartitionNumber = 1 PartitionType = 7

End of partition information. Total existing partitions: 1

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Mark Partition as active.

Change Drive letter and Paths and select the appropriate drive letter. Format : Format with

o Volume Label : NetBackup Volume o File System : NTFS

o Allocation unit size: Default Perform a quick format

In the similar fashion create volume “Source1” to “Source5” on the IP SAN and assign it to NetBackup Client (Jupiter)

StorControl>

StorControl> volume create blockSize = 512b policy = stripe size = 10GB name=source1 virtualDiskplacement = new

Response: Successful

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6. Installing Intransa VSS Provider

Successful Installation of Windows 2003 Operating systems with Gigabit Ethernet NIC and Microsoft iSCSI initiator will lead to installation and configuration of Intransa VSS Provider software on the NetBackup Client machines (Jupiter). The Intransa VSS Provider is instrumental in talking to Intransa IP SAN for creating snapshots of the source production volumes. Backup will be performed from the snapshot and after the backup snapshot will be automatically removed from the IP SAN.

Copy the Intransa VSS Provider software. Double click on the executable.

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Enter the User name and Organization

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Click Finish. Now You have successfully installed Intransa VSS Provider

This will create the icon on the desktop. Now double click on it for Intransa VSS Configuration. Specify the Startup type as Automatic

Specify the Realm iSCSI target IP address, its User account and password. Click Add realm.

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Click OK

Congratulations!! You have successfully completed the Installation and configuration of Intransa VSS Provider for the target Realm

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7. Installing NetBackup Server and Client

The volumes are available for Veritas NetBackup installation and configuration. We presume the VSS installed successfully without any error. Up until now we have configured netbackup volume and source volumes on the Intransa IP SAN. Also assigned them to hosts and formatted them for use. You have also successfully installed and configured the Intransa VSS provider software on NC.

The following section explains about how to install Veritas NetBackup Software. Now we are going to install the Veritas NetBackup Software and configure the server and clients. Following are the simple steps to achieve this goal.

Installing the Veritas NetBackup Software.

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Click on Install Server Software.

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Click on “I accept the terms of the license agreement.”

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Enter the License Key and Select the “NetBackup Master Server.”

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Select the “NetBackup, NetBackup Debugger Symbols” and select all options under it.

Note: Do not select the “Veritas Snapshot Provider” option since we are going to use the Intransa VSS Provider software for taking the snapshots.

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Select Use the “built-in system account”, In Startup select Automatic and select “Start NetBackup Server Services After Install”.

Note: Do not modify the Default Ports except under unusual circumstances. Click Next

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Now Enter the “Master Server Name.” In this case it is “rasgulla” configured as NetBackup Server.

Click Next

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Click Finish

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Now the NetBackup Configuration wizard will start automatically. This will help us in configuring the NetBackup Server.

Click Next.

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Click Next.

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Click Next.

Note: Since IP SAN disks are not come in to the category of removable media devices, Device Configuration Wizard will not find it and gives following error

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Click Next.

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Click Next.

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Click Next.

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Click Next.

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Click Next.

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Now configuration wizard will start with Backup Policy Configuration.

Click Next.

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Click OK.

This completes the Veritas NetBackup Server Software installation.

Now we have start with the Veritas NetBackup Client Software installation on NetBackup Client machine Jupiter

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NetBackup Client Installation

The following section explains about how to install Veritas NetBackup Software on NetBackup Client machine .Now we are going to install the Veritas NetBackup Software and configure the client. Following are the simple steps to achieve this goal.

Installing the Veritas NetBackup Software.

Put the Veritas NetBackup Software media in the NS.

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Click on “Install Client Software”

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Click Next

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Click on the Install to this computer only. Click Next

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Click Next

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Online Disk-to-Disk Backup with Veritas NetBackup and VSS Intransa Inc. Click Next

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Click Finish

This completes the Veritas NetBackup Client Installation. In the next section we will test the backup and restore operations.

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8. Testing Backup and Restore

Successful Installation of NetBackup Server and Client software will lead to define the storage units and proper policy for taking the backup from the snapshot.

While configuring NetBackup Server please take maximum care of defining proper policy, storage units, Retention etc.

Defining Storage Unit

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Select “New Storage Unit“

Fill in the relevant details and click OK

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Defining Backup Policy

Successful Installation of NetBackup Server and Client software along with defining storage units will lead to define the proper policy for taking the backup from the snapshot.

Give appropriate Policy name eg. snapshot1

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Specify clients for this policy. Click Add and enter the name of client Jupiter and click Next.

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Click Next

Now specify files and folder to backup. Click Add and enter drive name eg. D:

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Define Backup Type , viz. Full Backup , Incremental Backup and User Backup.

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Note: Please refer to appendix for more details about the backup types Specify the Rotation. Click Next

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Click Finish

Now double click on the snapshot1 policy and mark the box “Perform snapshot backups” for performing the backup operations from snapshots. Also mark the “Allow multiple data streams” for performing multiple backups

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Click on “Backup Selections” tab to see the volumes to be backup

Click OK. Now it will validate the policy. It will give an error is policy is not proper.

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Now click on the newly created “snapshot1” policy and click on “Manual Backup” to start the backup immediately.

Select “Schedules” and “Clients” and click OK

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Now click OK to open the “Activity Monitor”.

Now monitor the progress of the job using the Activity Monitor on NetBackup Server.

Following Job Details window will give Job Overview and Detailed Status as shown below

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Verifying the Snapshot operations

The snapshot operation can be verified from the Intransa StorControl window.

Following steps and screenshots demonstrate the same.

Open the StorControl window

Click on “source1” volume . In General tab section shows the camera type icon on the volume. Indication the snapshot is initiated.

All snapshots tab shows the snapshot volume for source1 volume connected to Jupiter in the Assigned initiator tab.

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Congratulations!! You have successfully taken the backup from the snapshot volume. Following screen shot shows the backup operation is successful.

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This will verify the snapshot operation. After the Backup completes the snapshot volume automatically gets deleted.

Similarly you can create the multiple policies to suit your backup needs.

Note: Please refer to Appendix for guidelines for defining the backup policies.

Restore Operation

The Backup data can be restored using the Backup, Archive and Restore Window

Open the “Backup, Archive and Restore” Window on NetBackup Client or Server

Select the folders or files to be restored and click on icon to Start Restore of Marked files.

If the data is backed using the snapshot policy then we need to restore it to the source volume using the option Restore everything to a different

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Click on “Start Restore” button.

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Monitor the progress of the job using the “Activity Monitor” on NetBackup Server.

Congratulations!! You have successfully taken restored volume. Following screen shot shows the restore operation is successful.

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9. Performance Benchmarking

Following performance tests were conducted on the IP SAN.

No. Test Cases Average

speed (Mb/sec)

Peak speed (Mb/sec)

A NetBackup Server & Client connected using LAN and NetBackup Server & Client are connected to IPSAN using Intel Gigabit NIC. 1 Backup from Local Disk

Backup of NetBackup Servers local disk using Localdisk policy to IP SAN (NetBackup Volume) on NetBackup Server

34.775 39.500

2 Backup from Snapshot Volume Backup of Clients data (Source Volume) from the snapshot on IP SAN using Snapshot policy to IP SAN (NetBackup Volume) on NetBackup Server

26.441 30.500

3 Backup from Source Volume Backup of Clients data (Source Volume) on IP SAN using Regular policy to IP SAN (NetBackup Volume) on NetBackup Server

30.153 35.554

4 Restore to IP SANDisk

Restore from NetBackup Volume to IP SAN Source Volume

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Case Study: Comparison of Backup Performance with Tape Media No. Media Mfg. Xfer Rate Realistic Xfer

Rate 25 Gb Backup 1 4mm DDS3 02.4 Mb/s 01.2 Mb/s 5.80 hours 2 4mm DDS4 04.8 Mb/s 02.4 Mb/s 2.90 hours 3 AIT-1 06.0 Mb/s 03.0 Mb/s 2.30 hours 4 AIT-2 12.0 Mb/s 03.0 Mb/s 2.30 hours 5 DLT4000 03.0 Mb/s 01.5 Mb/s 4.60 hours 6 DLT7000 10.0 Mb/s 05.0 Mb/s 1.40 hours 7 DLT8000 12.0 Mb/s 06.0 Mb/s 1.20 hours 8 SDLT220 22.0 Mb/s 11.0 Mb/s 0.65 hours 9 SDLT320 32.0 Mb/s 16.0 Mb/s 0.45 hours 10 LTO 32.0 Mb/s 16.0 Mb/s 0.45 hours 11 Intransa IP 5500 50.0 Mb/s 38.0 Mb/s 0.15 hours (Source: http://www.finitesystems.com/PRODUCT/tape/backup.htm)

The above chart was taken from an online web resource; it is only intended to convey the difference between using tape as a backup medium and using the IP 5500 as a backup medium. Values represented may vary. The chart does give a general comparison in the difference of times to perform backup operations between tape and the IP 5500.

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10. Summary

Based on solution results, following are the conclusions drawn:

Conclusions

NetBackup Server with IP SAN gives Backup peak performance of 39.500 Mb/sec with average of 35.554 Mb/sec.

NetBackup Media Server with IP SAN gives Restore peak performance of 23.045 Mb/sec with average of 18.567 Mb/sec.

Disk Storage configuration is flexible and can be easily tuned to the available disk space.

Intransa VSS Provider works well with the NetBackup Software makes it possible to automatically start the snapshot for backup. The backup happens from the snapshot volume and Original source volume is available and remains online for the regular use. This helps immensely in shorting the backup window of mission critical volumes without bringing them offline for backup.

Restore operation can be controlled using the option Restore everything to a

different location to make sure the data is restored at the original source

volume or the required destination.

Summary

IT organizations can increase their productivity and decrease costs by implementing a disk-to-disk backup solution. The Intransa IP 5500 provides a robust platform for easily implementing and managing backups to disk. Veritas’s NetBackup software was tested and performance difference was minimal for backup with a varying difference in restore times. Together it offers the extremely flexible and high performing fast backup solution for the enterprise.

Veritas NetBackup Software seamlessly gets integrated with the Intransa VSS Provider. This gives immense benefit for configuring the Disk-to-Disk Backup Solutions with Intransa IP SAN in using the automated snapshot feature.

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The volume configuration tested under Windows 2003 with ATA internal disks for the source and an Intransa stripe of mirrors (RAID10) as the target for the backups. The IP 5500 was configured for optimal throughput based on initial testing by creating a stripe width of 64k per stripe member.

The IP 5500 performed much better when compared to conventional tape media. It is important to note that only a single volume was used for the storage pool. If multiple volumes and backup streams were used then this number could potentially double being limited by only the software or source data read rate.

From this minimal testing, the IP 5500 decreased backup times by 66% which drastically reduces the backup window for administrators. This has the added benefit of allowing IT staff to increase the numbers of backups or simply ease the management and cost of backups. This also insures that the backups are always online and easy accessible.

For more information on specific configurations please contact your local Sales Representative or visit http://www.intransa.com

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11. Appendix

A.VSS Concepts

This section provides theory details of the technical concepts about Microsoft Virtual Shadow copy Service (VSS) .

A.1 What is VSS:

Microsoft’s Volume Shadow-Copy Service (VSS) provides a framework for creating a point-in time copy of a single volume or multiple volumes. It specifically aims to eliminate the problem of corrupt snapshots or backups due to open files.

The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) is an infrastructure that makes possible enhanced data protection though high fidelity backups, rapid data restores, and data transport.

VSS is a component of the operating system, and as such, is not directly accessed by users. Instead the Volume Shadow Copy Service coordinates with user applications, backup applications and storage hardware to enable the creation of point-in-time shadow copies of data on single or multiple volumes without significantly impacting performance.

Open files have historically been a backup administrator’s biggest challenge, as they are often skipped or corrupted during the backup process. The alternative – forcing open files closed or asking users to log out so applications can be shut down – is no longer viable. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 VSS partially addresses this problem by allowing users to access certain files while a backup is taking place, without compromising the fidelity of the backup. (A drawback to VSS is that the files must be related to a VSS-aware application in order for all volumes to be synchronized to a single point in time,) Another feature of VSS is the ability for users to view and recover previous versions of their files without IT intervention.

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By enabling read-only, point-in-time copies of an entire volume, the problem associated with backing up files that are open or in use would seem to be taken care of. That is Microsoft’s intent, and in some situations, it is an intent that has the potential to be fulfilled.

A.2 VSS Components

Requestors

o Invokes VSS to a create shadow copy Backup applications

Shadow copy management applications

Writers – Represents Apps and Windows Services (i.e., SQL, Exchange, AD, etc.)

o Differentiates VSS from competitors

o Participate in shadow copy creation process Providers

o Create shadow copies System provider Hardware snapshots

A.3 How VSS works

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 VSS works with applications that are in use to determine when a volume shadow-copy (snapshot) can be made. A snapshot is a copy of some data set, for example, a disk volume, at a point in time. VSS then communicates with the operating system and applications and freezes computing tasks to perform “copy on write” tasks on a sector-by sector basis. Without the freeze function, data could become corrupted when the snapshot is taken because the system might be in the middle of a task. Meanwhile, applications continue to run uninterrupted. The original volume continues to change as the process continues, but the shadow copy of the volume remains constant. VSS also gives permission to the backup application to access the volume and back it up in its “frozen” state. The shadow copy volume is then used for the actual backup. After the shadow copy volume is saved on the backup device, the shadow copy is deleted.

The process uses free disk space on any NTFS volume (the file system used by Windows NT for storing and retrieving files) to store a record of the differences between the original volume and the shadow copy volume. If there isn’t enough

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In order to ensure absolute data integrity for all volumes, especially those that are interrelated, the application, the backup program and the backup device should be “VSS aware.” This means that the components participating in the backup must be specifically programmed to work with VSS. Towards this end, Microsoft is providing a software development kit (SDK) to enable independent hardware and software vendors to interface their components, including applications, data stores, snapshot engines, and backup applications, with VSS. These components (the application, backup program, and storage software/hardware) are called writers, requestors, and providers, respectively, as described in more detail in the table below.

VSS Component Description

Requestor The requestor is backup software that initiates the creation and destruction of the shadow copy.

Writer The writer is any application software that participates in the shadow copy process and whose files and data are included in the process.

Provider The provider is the storage technology that does the actual shadow copy (snapshotting).

Table: VSS Components

All components of VSS --writers, requestors, and providers-- must be VSS-aware in order for VSS to be able to orchestrate the communication among them.

The following diagram shows the three-way orchestration among shadow copy-writers, requestors, and providers, as performed by VSS.

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B. Overview to VSS and VDS Design

There are two approaches to managing storage networks. One is to manage storage through some mechanism on the server; the other is to manage it through a separate storage product that interfaces with some hardware component of the storage network. Both VSS and VDS are designed to enable host-based and hardware-based solutions, as shown in Figure below. In this figure, Windows host software components are unshaded; third party vendor components are shaded. The additional details of this diagram are explained in later sections.

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VSS and VDS Components in Windows Server 2003

Software Providers

Software solutions implemented on the host computer are referred to variously as “host-based” or ”software” solutions, or as “software providers.” Software providers can be supplied by third party vendors, or by Microsoft (and in some cases, both are present). In the latter case, this software is referred to as the “system software provider,” and is an “in-box” solution that ships with the product without requiring any additional installation steps.

The advantage of host-based solutions is that they are inexpensive and easy to deploy. Updates and bug fixes are much simpler to manage, since they are part of the operating system service packs. However, host-based solutions do have drawbacks: one is that in high workload settings, the host can be overloaded and performance impaired; another is that advanced functionality might not be provided.

Hardware Providers

Hardware vendors have also developed their own storage management solutions. These solutions, known as “hardware providers,” can generally provide higher performance capabilities than solutions built into the system software, since the workload is offloaded to the external disk subsystem. Additionally, these solutions can provide maximum configuration flexibility, as well as advanced capabilities such as remote management.

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C. Volume Shadow Copy Service

The Volume Shadow Copy service provides an infrastructure for creating high fidelity, point-in-time images known as shadow copies. These copies of a single volume or multiple volumes can be made without affecting production server performance. VSS is able to produce high fidelity shadow copies through its coordination with business applications, backup applications, and storage hardware.

Shadow copies can be used for a number of purposes: Rapid backup and restores.

Individual file restores (using the Shadow Copy for Shared Folders feature).

Transport (using a hardware provider) for tape backups, testing and data mining.

VSS Components Involved in the Shadow Copy Creation

Process

Successful shadow copy creation requires the completion of a number of steps, the details of which are quite complex. This section outlines the components of the Volume Shadow Copy service—requestors, writers and providers— necessary for creating high fidelity shadow copies.

Online Disk-to-Disk Backup with Veritas NetBackup and VSS